


malcolm's law

by bullroars



Category: Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: Alpha Claire, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Canon-Typical Violence, Drinking, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mild Language, Raptors, Role Reversal, Science, Self-indulgent velociraptor ocs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-15 02:25:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4589475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bullroars/pseuds/bullroars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire's world has narrowed down to independent variables.  The way the wind blows.  The strength of the boar's smell.  The willingness of the raptors to hunt, and not turn on her and shred her like wet paper.  </p><p>Things she can't control.  </p><p>She fucking hates field tests.   </p><p>(Or, role swap!AU.  Claire trains raptors, Owen runs a theme park, and no one can decide if the plural of <i>Indominus</i> is <i>indomini</i> or <i>indominuses</i>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1. commutative law

**Author's Note:**

> So I know that i should be working on broad-shouldered beasts, but this idea WOULD NOT LEAVE ME ALONE, you're welcome, I'm sorry. Enjoy! Most of the science is solid. I'm a sometimes-behavioral ecologist, so I tried! 
> 
> Also, I could have used the movie's raptors, but then I thought to myself lmao no why would I do that when I can make my own, so. Yep. I also figure that with Owen as park director, he'd prioritize dinosaur comfort & staff safety over company interests (not a criticism against Claire, just a different management style), and Claire would DEFINITELY be one of those ecologists who makes everything about math. 
> 
> (Inspired by my own undergraduate lab mentor, Kevin, who makes everything about math.)

_How can we stand in the light of discovery, and not act?_

 

malcolm's law

 

i. _communitative law_

 

Claire's world has narrowed down to independent variables.  The way the wind blows.  The strength of the boar's smell.  The willingness of the raptors to hunt, and not turn on her and shred her like wet paper.

Things she can't control.

She fucking hates field tests. 

Claire's a theoretical behaviorist by training.  _Emphasis on theoretical,_ she used to tell people, companies who wanted her to work with lab monkeys, zoos who wanted her in cages with lions, billionaires who wanted her to hike out into the middle of Africa and tame elephants for game reserves.  She likes computer models and algorithms.  Neat lists of variables and nice, clean graphs, low p-values and positive correlations. 

Not field work.  How Dr. Wu managed to talk her into taking the "next step" like this is still a mystery.  Maybe he managed it because the boys were cutes as hatchlings, all wide, toothless mouths and big eyes.  Al had cried whenever Claire put him down to take a shower or make a cup of tea.  Taking a more hands-on field position had seemed fun and challenging at the time, after spending a decade in academia. 

Now, nearly two years later, Al is six feet tall and just shy of three hundred pounds.  He can kill Claire with a flick of his claws if he suddenly realizes that she's a much easier meal than the boar they're currently hunting through the trees. 

Naturally, Claire's manipulated every variable she could get her hands on to reduce that possibility, but.  Al has seventy-two teeth and a six-inch sickle claw on each foot.  That's a pretty serious margin of error.  All Claire can see when she looks at him now is a very, very painful death. 

The pack's beta looks to his alpha and warbles a call.  His bright scales are darkened by the woods and the lack of moonlight, but his eyes shine. 

Claire whistles back softly, creeping after him.  She moves almost silently.  She can't see the rest of the pack prowling through the jungle, but she knows they're there.  They're closing in on their target. 

Sure enough, the sounds of a boar rooting around the underbrush soon fills the night air, and the animal comes into view.  He has tusks the size of Claire's arms and as sharp as Al's sickle claws.  His hide is thick and shaggy, dotted with scars.  Claire had him brought over and turned loose in her paddock intentionally.  If they can kill him, the pack's bloodlust will be satisfied for days. 

SR and Hardy will flank their prey on either side.  Al, as the biggest and flashiest, will mock-attack the boar from the front to distract it.  Mal will--hopefully--come from behind and leap onto its back, though who knows with Mal. 

Claire will cut its throat, and the pack will feed.  She's got it down to a science.  All of the variables have been accounted for.  Animal behavior is strange and incomprehensible if you don't know all of the factors influencing it, but if you do know, the behavioral response is as regular and as predictable as a grandfather clock. 

Claire's raised the pack from egg to adulthood.  She's ruined more manicures, heels, and copies of _The Grapes of Wrath_ than she cares to count.  She's been nipped, scratched, hissed at, and used as everything from a pillow to a rock climbing wall.  She knows all of the variables.

She whistles.

Al shoots forward from her side with a terrible shriek, lunging at the boar.  The animal startles, swiping at Al with its tusks, lowing and pawing at the ground. 

Al feints to the side, snapping at the boar's snout.  Those tusks could disembowel even a fully-grown _Velociraptor,_ but Al is quick and confident. 

Claire whistles again, high and sharp, and from either side of the boar SR and Hardy come, claws spread and teeth bared. 

SR and Hardy could be twins. They're both a solid dark gray, yellow-eyed, and viciously intelligent.  Claire can only tell that Hardy's on the left and SR's on the right because of Hardy's brilliant yellow spots. 

She whistles again, watching the carnage, and waits. 

Hardy and SR savage at the boar's sides, darting in to claw and bite at its hide before dancing back out of the reach of its swinging tusks.  Hardy hasn't gotten a good bite in yet.  He's venomous.  His back teeth are hollow and filled with viper venom.  A bite from him usually ends a hunt faster than Mal can be fucked to show up and play his part, but he has to get a good grip on the prey and the boar's not having any of it. 

(Claire chose a boar because boars, while they have natural predators, very rarely have natural _pack_ predators.  They can take on a lone tiger or jaguar, but four raptors should be too much for even the most ill-tempered boar.

Hopefully, this will make her first non-ACU regulated hunt a success.)

Al shrieks and leaps, landing on one of the boar's tusks.  He pauses, like he's surprised he actually made the jump, and hoots in triumph, going in for the boar's eyes. 

_Damn,_ Claire thinks, about to step in and intervene.  _Damn damn damn--_

With a scream that sends birds scattering from trees five miles away, Mal comes flying out of the underbrush and makes one clean jump up onto the boar's back.  His claws sink in. 

The animal jerks its head around in surprise, the motion sending Al head over tail into the jungle floor, and unintentionally bares its throat to Claire.

Claire moves.  Less than a handful of seconds later, the boar is dead and Claire's stomping around the carcass, shooing the boys away from their kill. 

Mal hisses at her and Claire wastes no time smacking the heel of her palm against his snout.  Chastened, her youngest raptor backs off and ducks his head submissively, waiting for his turn to eat.

Claire "eats" first, circling the carcass and slashing randomly at its hide.  (There's blood everywhere.  This is the third pair of jeans ruined this month.  Claire's kind of pissed.  She _loves_ it when her models line up and correctly predict behavior, but she's really kind of over having to buy jeans from the gift shop every two weeks.) 

When she's done, she steps back and allows Al to feed, settling herself against a tree to wait.

Al eats his fill, snapping at his brothers.  He's almost always bad-tempered.  Mealtime is no exception.  Claire's had a hell of a time learning what sets him off so she can manage his moods.  Everything from Hardy's snoring to the height and position of the sun seems to get him going. 

SR and Hardy eat next.  Her middle raptors do everything together and in almost perfect tandem.  It would be creepy if it didn't make Claire's life easier.  While they tear chunks of meat from the boar, Al pokes around the undergrowth looking for grubs and Mal whines, begging his siblings to eat.   

When SR's done, he delicately wipes at his muzzle with a claw and pads over to Claire.  Mal rushes in to feed gleefully, tearing at what's left. 

Claire smiles.  Raptor behavior is most variable and unpredictable during a hunt.  There are a million things that can't be controlled at play, and any one of them could set a raptor off. 

But after a hunt, they just want to sleep.  Claire shifts over and clicks to SR.  Her favorite sighs happily and settles down beside her, head against her knee.  Claire scratches his head crests fondly. 

Today they executed a perfect hunt.  They obeyed Claire's commands perfectly, with the exception of Mal, and took down a boar and didn't turn on Claire.  They treated her as their alpha out in the field. 

Her models are _right._ She's right. 

She scratches SR's head and closes her eyes, confident enough in her math to doze a little.  SR hums and pushes his head closer.

He's not bothered by much.  Al and Mal are nutcases and Hardy flips a shit every time he sees a door--he's an escape artist to such an extent that Viv, Claire's co-handler, has taken to calling him Houdini--but SR is always calm. 

If he grows any bigger, Claire's going to start treating him as the beta.  She'd much rather have him at her back than Al.  She knows who's less likely to bite. 

She lets the raptors rest for a while.  When the clouds start to clear and the moon comes out above the trees and turns SR's gray hide to shining silver, brings out his flecks of white, she stands up and whistles for home. 

They go.

The raptor paddock is two miles by two miles on the northern end of Isla Nublar.  Claire told InGen that if she was going to do this, it had to be done to her specifications, and it was. 

There's room to hide, hunt, play, and run.  Captive animals have been known to exhibit stress behavior when their enclosures are too small or too boring.  Most carnivores aren't hyperagressive if they're not stressed, and the last thing Claire wanted to deal with was hyperaggressive _Velociraptors._

So far, it's worked.  Claire's done everything in her power to control the raptors' behavior.  Large paddocks, lots of team-building activities, a rigid structure.  She even demanded that Henry Wu cook her up male _Velociraptors._

"Our observations of the packs on Isla Sorna and from Muldoon's journals tell us they're matriarchal," she'd argued.  "Based on the behavior of hyena packs, males will fight among _themselves_ for status, but a beta male will almost never challenge an alpha female."

Al's not terribly fond of Claire, but he has never, ever challenged her for dominance of the pack. 

As a result of all of this, Claire's boys are unrecognizable from the raptors that stalked through the first park.  They're well-behaved and only moderately aggressive, and for the most part, content.  Claire doesn't spend any time with them out of controlled settings--even on this hunt she's armed with three different air guns containing tranquilizers, one wickedly sharp knife, and three vials of antivenin--but she doesn't feel unsafe around them.  She doesn't feel hunted. 

Her raptors are mischievous and too clever for their own good, and Hardy takes every opportunity to escape and raid the raptor staff's offices for Doritos, but they're not the hyperaggressive hyperpredators Dr. Grant warned her they'd be. 

They do what Claire tells them to do.  They're _predictable._

Except for Mal.  Her models can predict how each of the raptors will react to a ninety-nine point eight percent certainty, with the exception of Mal.  He's at about eighty percent.  Eight times out of ten, Claire knows what he'll do.  How he'll react. 

But two times out of ten, she just has no idea. 

As if he can sense her irritation with him, the youngest raptor stops walking, eyes fixed on the trees.  He cocks his head to the side.  Hardy and Al ignore him, electing instead to playfight.  SR doesn't stray from Claire's side. 

But Mal's hide flushes a vivid green--his DNA had been spliced with Caribbean dwarf octopus DNA, for some ungodly reason--and he barks delightedly before breaking from the pack and racing off through the jungle.

Claire sighs. 

The rest of the pack follows at a more sedate pace.  The "yard," as Claire calls it, is an open tract of land between the tall fences that keep her raptors in and the dense jungle where they hunt.  All of the lights are on. 

As soon as they get out into the open, Claire spots what set Mal off this time and mutters a, "Fucking _really?"_ under her breath.  SR grumbles, picking up on her annoyance. 

"You're making my raptors fat," she calls. 

From his spot up on the catwalk, Director Owen Grady grins.  On the ground beneath him Mal caws and dances in circles, eyes fixed on the chocolate bar in Owen's hands.

"Go long, buddy," Owen says, and hurls a piece of chocolate.  Mal bounds off after it, flashing green and yellow, leaping up into the air to catch it before crashing back down and landing clumsily and bouncing back for more. 

Al and Hardy look at Claire.  She sighs.  "Go on," she tells them, and they shoot off to join their brother, cawing pathetically for sweets.

"This is why you're my favorite," Claire tells SR, who hoots lowly in response.  Raptors have a sweet tooth, but SR seems to be the exception.  He's a whore for Swedish fish, but that's about it. 

Grady feeds the raptors bits of chocolate until his bar is gone, then spreads his hands to show them.  "Sorry, guys," he says.  "More next time, okay?"

Al and Hardy sniff the air, determining that the Hershey bar is indeed gone, and wander off to sleep and play.  Mal chirps up at his favorite human, head cocked to the side. 

When he's not changing colors, Mal is almost as vibrantly-colored as Al.  His base color is gray, like SR and Hardy, but he has thick orange stripes and the brightest eyes Claire has ever seen.  Al's flashier--a deep, gleaming crimson from tip to tail, broken only by a black underbelly and black markings on his face--but Mal is, Claire thinks, the most beautiful. 

The littlest raptor chirps again, realizes there is no more food, and finally skips off to harass his older brothers. 

"You're a menace," Claire tells him as he passes.  Mal ignores her.  He was born almost a year after his brothers.  Everything that could go wrong with an egg did.  The rest of his clutch died as they developed.  The only other sibling that hatched, an unnamed male, took two breaths and died in Claire's hands while the older raptors screamed and cried. 

Mal had been weak and sickly for months before finally getting strong enough to join the pack in the paddock. Even then, Claire's math told her that he'd last maybe a few weeks.  He was just too small and sickly to survive.  He was badly socialized.  If his genetic weakness didn’t kill him, his brothers would.  _One headache after another,_ Claire always thought. 

Claire whistles to the boys, touching them each one last time, and heads up to the paddock. 

Touch is important.  Touch reaffirms pack dynamics.  She pats Mal's flanks and Al's shoulders and scritches Hardy underneath his jaw.  She scratches SR's head crests one more time.  In return, they all rub their noses under her jaw delicately, like wolf cubs greeting their parents. 

"Successful hunt, Ms. Dearing?"  Grady's leaning up against the railing, waiting for her.  He's wearing board shorts and flip flips and a hideously tacky Hawaiian shirt.   

"Successful board meeting?" she returns.  "Where's Viv?"

Owen grins.  "Very," he says.  As far as Claire can tell, he dresses like he does to throw people off.  Nobody expects the Director of Jurassic World, the heir apparent to Simon Masrani and John Hammond's legacy, to show up looking like a beach bum.  "I told Viv she could go home for the night.  I'd call for ACU if I heard any screaming."

In the nearly three years Claire's known Owen, she's never seen him comb his hair, much less put on a suit.

Not even for a dinner date. 

Claire makes a mental note to text Viv and tell her the good news before she goes to bed.  Viv'll be ecstatic.  She did as much to create the model as Claire.  "What brings you out here?" Claire says, hands on her hips.  "At... one in the morning?"

"I can't come see my favorite murder lizards?"

"Technically, they're murder birds," Claire says.  She narrows her eyes.  She's an animal behaviorist, but she's found that animal theory works on humans almost as often. She considers all of the variables. 

_Late October.  The park is preparing for its 2016 season.  It's one AM and Owen Grady values his sleep.  Ink stains on his fingers, no phone.  Wrinkled shirt.  He didn't go home today._

"What do you need?"  she corrects.  "Is it Rexy again?  I told you she's too old to do three shows a day six months ago, Mr. Grady."

"It's weird how you do that," Owen says.  "And it's _Owen._ Also, I reduced Rexy's feedings to once a day, twice on Fridays, just like you suggested.  Don't want the old girl getting sick."

Claire had been prepared to argue--no one ever listened when she gave behavioral advice, everyone was too set in their ways--and she closes her mouth, flushing.  "Well, good," she says. 

"How'd you know I was here about an animal?"  he asks.  He looks curious. 

"Process of elimination.  I'm a behaviorist, you look like you haven't slept, and it’s very early in the morning, so it's urgent.  Easy."  Claire's bad at people, but she's good at math.  And people are math, sometimes.  They don't want to be, but they can be.  They are. 

"Fair," Grady allows.  "Don't sell yourself short, Dr. Dearing.  I'm here because you're _the_ behaviorist, now that Grant's retired."

"Sarah's still at the head of the field."

"Sarah won't set foot on this island."

"Can you blame her?"

"Not at all.  You couldn't pay me to go back to Damascus," Grady says lightly. 

"So what do you want?  You’re interrupting the raptors' routine." Down below, all of the raptors fall silent and swing their heads up to look at Owen. 

He pulls a face.  "What, they have an itinerary too?"

"A schedule reduces variability," Claire snaps, bristling.  She doesn't understand why she and Grady can't have a polite conversation, but they seem to be incapable of going more than five minutes without one of them--usually her--wanting to maul the other.  "Reduced variability reduces chance.  Reduced change--"

"--keeps us all from becoming raptor food, yeah, yeah.  How're they doing?"  Owen asks, ignoring her question. 

Claire files his avoidance away for later analysis.  "Well," she says.  "They're responding to training.  They hunt beautifully."

"You prove all your hypotheses?"  Grady says, grinning again.  He's not being patronizing, just a dick.  To be fair, Claire had spent most of that disastrous one date trying to describe complex behavioral theories to Owen's floral shirt because she was pissed he showed up looking like a goddamn hobo.

"Almost," she says.  "If Mal would behave himself, we'd be ready for publication."

Grady laughs.  "Someone once told me that you can't predict the behavior of anything."

"Someone wasn't trying hard enough," Claire says flatly.  "Predictive behavior models have an almost one hundred percent success rate in captive animal settings."

"What about the rest of that percentage?" 

"There's also a slight chance that the sun will blow up and swallow the earth at any moment," Claire says.  "But moment to moment, we're still here." 

"Sure," Owen agrees, "until a meteor wipes us out, or the sun explodes, or some other random event takes us off the map.  What d'you science types call that?"

"Stochasticity."  Claire looks away from Grady's wide, easy grin.  From below, Al and SR hiss a question.  Al flexes his claws, sensing an opportunity to put his bad temper to good use.  "You business types call it that too.  Now, you want to tell me why you're really here, _Owen?_ The raptors are getting impatient."

Owen shoves his hands into his pockets.  The smile fades from his face.  He cocks his head to the side and Claire's reminded, almost irresistibly, of Mal.

"Dr. Dearing," he says, "I need you to come look at something for me."

\---

Claire started working for InGen when she was thirty-two and fresh out of her second doctorate.  She had an impressive résumé --Master's degree in mathematics, a PhD in Ethology and another in Paleoethology, and an undergrad degree in pottery, just for shits, added to several publications and ten years' experience with theoretical models.  She had a thirst for groundbreaking research and new horizons. 

 "You can't get more groundbreaking than working with _Velociraptors,"_ Simon Masrani had said.  He wasn't wrong. 

The current belief surrounding raptors was based on the experiences of the survivors of Nublar and Sorna.  Grant had written on them extensively, labeling them as super intelligent, highly aggressive pack predators who would hunt down anything that moved without remorse.

Claire, if she could teach them, if she could train them, could prove that belief wrong. 

Six months later, Al, SR, and Hardy were born, and Claire got to work.

\---

Claire's still covered in mud and blood, so she asks Owen to take her home first, which he does without complaint.  A five minute shower and a muffin later, Claire's ready to go. 

"Why do you get in the cage with them?" Grady asks.  "I like your raptors a lot, but I wouldn't get in their paddock." 

"You'd die if you tried," Claire says.  She's leaning against the car window, eyes closed.  (She's very, very glad Owen didn't bring his motorcycle.)

"And you won’t?"

Claire smiles.  "No," she says.  "I've controlled for all of the variables.  They won't kill me."

"Why not?"  It's not a challenge.  Owen sounds genuinely curious.  Most people tell Claire that she's insane.  That she's wrong, despite the fact that her math is right.

"What's two plus two?"  she says instead, cracking an eye open.

"Five," Owen deadpans, and grins like he's pleased with himself.  Claire ignores him.

"Two plus two always equals four.  You can't make it equal anything else.  If you know that your numbers are two and two, not one and two, not two point one and two, you'll get for every time if you're also using the right scale.  We call this the commutative law." 

"I follow," says Owen.

"So, if I know the variables in my equation, I also know the answer."  Claire closes her eyes again.  "And I know the variables."  _Except for Mal._

"What happens if the variables change?  Your animals aren't going to be the same way forever.  They age, they mature.  They're living things, not math problems."

She shrugs with one shoulder.  "Then the equation changes, and I have to figure it out again."

"There hasn't been a death at Jurassic World in five years," Owen says.  "Don't break my record, Dearing."

"Wouldn't think of it," she murmurs.  "Where are we going?  It's late.  I've got a report due to Hoskins and Wu at five tomorrow."

"Not much farther," says Grady.

By the time the car stops, it's coming up on two in the morning.  Claire climbs out and finds herself staring at a huge concrete wall, sixty feet high and topped with sharp spikes, so new the jungle hasn't started creeping up over its sides.  The wall is so wide it disappears into the trees in either direction. 

"Against my recommendation," Owen begins, leading Claire towards the structure, "the Board of Directors commissioned a new project from Dr. Wu about a year ago.  They want to put the park at the top of the news again."

Claire can see windows cut into the sides of the concrete wall.  They're fifty feet up off the ground.  _What dinosaur is fifty feet high?_

"If de-extinction's not good enough for the public anymore," Grady continues bitterly, "the Board decided that _creating_ a dinosaur is the next reasonable step."

"Wait," Claire says slowly, " _creating_ a dinosaur?  How?"

"Genetic hybridization."  Owen takes her up a flight of concrete steps.  "They made a new dinosaur."

"Out of what?"  Claire says, fascinated.  The behavior of hybrid animals is a new, practically unexplored field.  Nobody knows how hybrid animals will react consistently because their behaviors are an amalgamation of different, often conflicting, coding.  

Wolves and coyotes, for example, hybridized all the time but served different roles in their ecosystems.  Wolves were apex predators, pack hunters, and avoided humans.  Coyotes, on the other hand, are scavengers, usually solitary, and thrived in human-dominated systems.  Coyote-wolf hybrids could be scavengers who avoided people or vicious, pack-oriented animals who preferred suburbs and backyards as their hunting grounds. 

"The base code is a rex," says Owen.  "Wu won't tell me what the hell the rest of it is, but I can pick out some carnotaur for sure, maybe a little majung, some _Rugops_ and maybe a gigantosaur for the size.  And they're smart.  _Velociraptor_ smart."

Claire doesn't know which of those statements to process first.  " _They?"_

"We have two.  The intended animal and her spare."  Owen opens the door at the top of the stairs with his card.  Inside, a security guard and a small team of techs immediately jump into position, pretending to be engrossed in their work. 

(Despite his choice, or lack thereof, of formal business wear, Grady runs a brutally efficient ship, so to speak.  He's friendly and laid back until he catches someone slacking off or being an idiot around the animals.

Then he's not so friendly.)

Claire sees a huge window, two feet thick and at least fifty feet long, split down the middle by a strip of concrete.  On the other side is a jungle enclosure, also divided into two halves by a huge wall of crisscrossing steel bars. 

On the left side of the paddock, something stirs. 

"Paddock's been split into two," says Owen.  "They've each got about two square miles of habitat.  I insisted.  Last thing we needed was a pair of space-stressed hypercarnis.  The bigger one hasn't been named yet--we're having a contest--but the smaller one's called Ghost."

On the left side of the paddock, the trees part.  Claire can see a broad, rounded muzzle, crocodile teeth, a single deep orange eye.  A tail swings through the air.  An arm parts the trees, ending in a four-fingered hand and black claws, each at least three feet long. 

"Claire," says Owen, "meet the _Indominus rex."_

\---

The first time Claire met Owen, she was three days out from her raptor's hatching an Owen had been trying to shut the program down.  InGen had gone behind his back and started the project without telling him.  (Because, Claire had been told, "The Director's kind of a nutcase and wouldn't know scientific progress if it jumped up and bit him in the nose.") 

Owen had broken Vic Hoskins' nose and stormed into the nursery like he was going to smash the eggs, then just three, himself.  Claire had intervened. 

"I'm not gonna put _Velociraptors_ in my park," he'd snarled. 

It had taken two hours and incredibly detailed safety plans and procedures to get him to allow the project to continue. 

Then he'd grinned, switching gears fast enough to give Claire whiplash, and asked her out for a cup of coffee.

Over the years, he'd supervised the raptors' development personally, only stepping back in the last six months or so once other things--this _Indominus_ thing, she now knows--demanded his attention.  He'd watched them grow, weighing Masrani Corp's interests against the safety of his staff and guests.  His clothes and laconic personality and his spoiling of Mal annoy Claire, but she's always respected his dedication. 

People say that he cares more about the dinosaurs than anything else, that he's forever skipping out on people and guests and business to go play with the baby trikes or ride his bike in Gyrosphere Valley beside the gallis, but that's not true.  He does care about the park and the people in it, just differently than anyone else.

So when he asked her out again, nine months after the raptors were born, Claire said yes.

Everyone, even world-class mathematicians and behavior analysts, makes mistakes. 

 Their relationship is now strictly professional.  Claire submits her progress reports on time and tolerates Owen hanging around the paddock.  Owen pesters her about security and the animals' happiness-he really is fond of them now--and runs interference between Claire and the people who don't understand what she's trying to do.

They argue a lot, and can't stand the sight of each other most days, but it works.  Sometimes it doesn't, but those are outliers and Claire won't include them in her data set.  She and Owen are fine.  They're adults.  There's nothing weird between them.

The math doesn't add up, but Claire figures that even she gets the equation wrong, sometimes. 

\---

"I want to know if you can do this," Owen says, very seriously.  "Because if you can't, it's fine.  I didn't want these animals in the first place.  I'm not gonna be crushed if we have to scrap the project and put these nightmares down."

Claire sips her coffee quietly.  Her mind is buzzing. 

The first _Indominus rex._ A hybrid dinosaur.  The first ever in the world. 

And they're part _Velociraptor._ She's sure of it.  They have to be. 

Claire watched them--the larger, unnamed female and the smaller one, Ghost, when it finally slunk out of the underbrush and out in the open to watch the people watching it--for almost an hour.

They’re intelligent.  The herbivores are all dumb as rocks, with the exception of the apatosaurs and one particularly belligerent trike named Bertha, as are most of the carnis.  The _Suchomimus_ and the spinosaur have limited problem-solving abilities.  Rexy is what Claire'd call _cunning,_ but only the raptors are _intelligent._ They have complex thoughts and actions.  They solve problems, learn, and remember.  She can see it in their eyes.  In Al's calculating gaze and SR's calm observation.  In Hardy's elaborate escape attempts and Mal's gleeful mischief. 

She saw that same look in the eyes of the indomini.  They're _very_ smart.  And they're _Tyrannosaurus-_ sized, and getting even bigger. 

Claire can understand why Owen's worried.  Having two unpredictable hypercarnivores running around as unknown variables is very stressful. 

"I can do it," she says. 

"Look, if this is to get a publication--"

Claire puts her coffee down with a thump, eyes narrowing in fury.  Owen wisely closes his mouth.  "You asked for my help training them," Claire says.  "I don't need a publication.  I'm at the top of my field.  Once Dr. Harding retires I will be the foremost expert on paleoethology.  I can leave this park any time I want and get tenure anywhere I want, because I'm very, very good at my job.  If I help you, it'll be because you _asked,_ and because I'm an expert, not because I'm some Masters student chasing publications."

"I'm sorry," Owen says, holding up his hands.  "It's been a long coupla weeks. This park--and InGen--has had problems with ambition and hubris before.  And it's not the execs that pay for those mistakes." 

Claire leans back, mollified.  "I understand your position," she says stiffly.  "And I'm not trying to upstage anyone or bring any academic glory down on myself."  _I already have it, asshole._ "But if--and it is _if,_ the animals are almost fully grown and likely set in their ways--anyone can train them, it's me." 

It's going to be very, very hard.  Claire knows _Velociraptors._ Rexy is probably the most studied dinosaur in existence.  There are carnotaurs on Isla Sorna she can visit and rumors of at least one solitary, grumpy majungasuar living by the sea.  She has information on individual species.

But nobody knows how these behaviors will intersect.  Raptors are pack animals, as are the carnotaurs, but majungs are cannibalistic and tyrannosaurs solitary hunters.  They have different scores on the aggression index.  They're _different._

On top of that, behavior is also largely shaped by experiences.  Claire's raptors grew up safe and well-fed.  They had someone to run to when they were afraid.  They're not _tame,_ not by any stretch of the imagination, but they're not very aggressive.  They're not actively violent. They'll take a bite out of anyone who's stupid enough to let their guard down around them, but they don't hunt humans.

She's not so sure about the indomini.

But they're _new._ A new puzzle.  A new challenge.  Something for her to solve before anyone else can. 

Owen signs and drains his coffee in one tired, resigned gulp.  "It's your funeral," he says.  "You start Monday.  Good luck."

\---

When handling incredibly dangerous carnivores, routines are essential.  Routines establish patterns, and patterns reduce variability.  A _Velociraptor_ who's been fed at seven AM his whole life is significantly less likely to maul a handler at four AM, because he knows he's being fed in a few hours.

Monday morning, Claire goes through her routine like she always does and like she always will.  She showers at five, changes out of her ridiculous, luxurious pajamas and into field clothes, makes a cup of coffee, and eats a banana. 

At five-thirty, she drives to the raptor paddock and spends fifteen minutes filing paperwork.  She greets Vivian and helps herself to another cup of coffee.  She goes up onto the catwalk and calls to the raptors, a hoarse, scraping bark that took her months to learn, and tosses them freshly-killed carcasses.  Rabbits for Al, chicken for SR and Mal, and fish for Hardy because he's a weirdo. 

After they're fed, Claire goes down into the paddock and lets them crowd sleepily around her, cooing and nuzzling into her hands.  They'll sleep until she returns at one. 

Today she definitely wants to smell like raptor, so she lets them lean against her, their bodies heavy. 

When she's ready to go, she pushes them away gently and leaves, climbing back into her car and heading north. 

In the daylight, the _Indominus_ paddock is stark and intimidating, a veritable fortress rising out of the jungle.  ACU guards patrol the top of the wall and around the base. 

_Grady's really not taking any chances,_ she thinks.  Claire flashes her badge and slips inside. 

The jungle on the other side of the glass is still.  Claire can see the bigger one's tail and Ghost's muzzle, but nothing else of their massive bulk.  The techs realize she's not Owen and go back to slouching over their computers. 

Claire sits down in front of the glass and watches the trees.  They're sleeping now.  She wants to be here when they wake up. 

"When they approach the glass," Claire tells one of the techs, "I want you to release a goat into each side of the paddock on my signal.  Can you do that?"

The tech agrees, sounding nervous, and they wait.

Around eleven, the bigger one stirs.  She stands, shaking herself out, and eyes the glass.  Claire waits.  And waits.  And waits. 

Finally, the _Indominus_ prowls closer, its nose mere inches from the few scant feet of melted sand separating it from Claire.  It huffs a breath.  She smells like _Velociraptor,_ and she can tell the _Indominus_ can tell. 

"Release a goat into paddock one," Claire says.  A goat is released and promptly devoured.  The _Indominus_ uses its hands to hold the carcass while it rips great chunks off the body.  Ghost, smelling blood, wakes up and comes to her side of the glass to investigate, snarling at her sibling. 

Claire has another goat put out, and settles in to watch.

On Tuesday, she repeats the process.  On Wednesday, she does it again.  On Thursday, both indomini are waiting for her, their bright eyes fixed on the glass, and Claire smiles. 


	2. ii. commoner's law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> owen grady is good at his job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry, I meant to get this out a while ago and let other things take precedent. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> I learned from the Jurassic World game that Owen was court-martialed and spent a brief time in military prison due to some of his actions in the Navy. Go Owen, you weird rebel you.

_ii. commoner's law_

 

When asked, Owen Grady likes to tell people that he has the best prison success story ever, never mind the fact that he wasn't in a real prison and he was only in that prison for two weeks. 

"Why did Simon Masrani hire you out of jail?"  People always ask.  Owen's recruitment into Masrani Global had been the talk of the business world.  First Simon pulled a disgraced SEAL out of military jail, then he sent that SEAL to get a degree or two, then he hired him right out of his Master's program and gave him a park to run.  It was unprecedented. 

"Dunno," Owen always says, grinning.  "I guess he liked my style."

The real truth is that Simon likes Owen's single-minded determination.  He didn't much care how Owen dressed or acted, as long as the park was running smoothly and the animals were happy and the guests were safe. 

Owen never has been able to half-ass a job.  In the four years he'd been Park Director, their safety rating's gone up to five-star, animal aggressiveness has dropped, and park attendance remains steady and satisfied. 

Owen's really, really good at his job. 

Granted, a lot of the staff doesn't like him much, but then Owen doesn't particularly like them either.  He's not a people person and his threshold for stupidity is probably unfairly low. 

Fortunately, Owen has Barry, and Barry is a people person.  Or more of a people person than Owen, anyway.  Whatever the case, Owen handles the dinosaurs and liaising with InGen and keeping everything running like it should, and Barry smooths ruffled feathers and occasionally talks down an angry mob. 

"Good news," Barry says, coming into Control with his face in a coffee cup. "Sasha Chung no longer wants to gut you and let Baru play with your intestines."

"That is good news," Owen says cheerfully.  Sasha Chung's the lead handler working with the _Suchomimus,_ Baru.  Owen's planning on displacing Baru--she's got one of the biggest enclosures, three square miles along the river, and Owen needs _somewhere_ to put the goddamn Terror Twins.  The last of the dilos finally died, so Baru can move into their exhibit.  It's smaller, but Owen's been told that Rexy probably wouldn't tolerate a move, and Bonny the _Spinosaurus_ is an escape artist.  Renovating another enclosure to keep her in would be a _nightmare._

"She wants you to okay Project Aphrodite, though."  Barry doesn't sound even the least bit apologetic. 

Owen groans. Project Aphrodite is slated to be Jurassic World's first carnivore breeding program.  Because spinos grow so quickly, Sasha's been pushing for the project to fall under her purview for the better part of a year.  "Fine," he grumbles.  "She's got it.  Rexy's probably too old, anyway." 

Barry makes an agreeable noise and finishes his coffee.  "What's on the docket today?" 

"Uh," says Owen, and pulls up his schedule on his phone.  "Board meeting, investor meeting, guided tour--why do I even do those anymore?--meeting with Dearing, and board meeting.  Want anything?"

Owen and Barry shouldn't work as well together as they do.  Barry's not business or military.  He's a doctor of political sciences, technically--Dr. du Vallon--and dabbled in politics and law before Simon snatched him up and made him PR Coordinator.  He's also Owen's only friend.  All Owen's military buddies washed their hands of him after the dishonorable discharge, and he really, really isn't a people person.  He has colleagues.  He's deeply fond of Simon.  He likes Lowery Caruthers' weird sense of humor.

But he doesn't make friends, except for Barry. 

"I'll handle an investor meeting and the last board meeting. You can probably give Lowery the tour.  I know how much you're tied in knots over the _Indominus_ thing."

Owen groans again.  "Thanks, buddy.  'preciate it." 

"Better you than me," says Barry.   "Now shoo, your meeting's in ten minutes.  I'll keep everything going here, mm?"

Owen waves Barry goodbye and jogs down the hall and up the stairs.  The board's waiting and utterly unsurprised by both Owen's near-tardiness and obnoxiously bright shirt. 

They fight back and forth about various crap for three hours--the Board wants another hybrid, Owen will not sign off on a project until he's reasonably sure the current hybrids aren't going to murder everyone, the Board wants to see profits go up again and Owen's not a miracle worker, yada, yada.  It's all very boring and very technical. 

By the time they wrap it up, Owen's been talked into okaying a practical demonstration of the raptor project and talked the board out of a pterosaur hybrid.  Overall, not a bad day. 

Barry's still meeting with the investors and there's two hours between now and Owen's meeting with Claire, so he grabs a sandwich and a catnap in his office. 

Then he climbs on his bike and heads out to the raptor paddock.  The sound of it brings the raptors running.  They inspect him through the woven iron and steel-link fence, chittering to one another.  "Boys," he says, "where's your mama?"

"You do know she's not actually their mother, right? And she hates it when you call her that."  Vivian Krill, Claire's co-handler, looks down at Owen from the catwalk. 

"I take it she's not here to scold me herself?"  Owen says lightly, approaching the fence.  The raptors regard him tolerantly.  Mal, Owen's favorite, chirps and butts his nose up against the fence.  His scales flush a bright orange, matching Owen's shirt. 

When the raptors hatched, Owen wanted to put them all down.  He loves animals--has gone to jail for animals--but keeping everyone safe is his job, and everything he had read and heard about _Velociraptors_ told him that they weren't safe.  By the time Claire's boys hatched in 2013, raptors as a species had killed more humans on Nublar and Sorna than all the other carnivores combined.  The rexes had them beat because of the whole San Diego clusterfuck, but here, raptors were the most lethal. 

Claire had talked Owen out of it.  He allowed the project to continue under the condition that he personally be allowed to oversee their development.  If at any point he thought they were too dangerous, he'd have them put down. 

Checkpoint after checkpoint passed.  The raptors grew from toothless, squalling little babies to yearlings to adults.  Mal was hatched against all odds.  And Claire kept making progress. 

Owen sticks his fingers through the fence and Mal, almost purring, shoves his nose under Owen's fingers.  His scales are cool and dry.  Owen runs his hands over Mal's eye ridges, his narrow forehead, his bristly crests that are finally starting to come in now that he's approaching maturity. 

"Hardy and Al are in moods today," Viv warns.  "Watch your fingers."

"Sorry, buddy," Owen says, pulling his hand back.  Mal chitters mournfully, tangling his claws into the bars.  "I like my fingers where they are."

"Claire left early this morning," Viv explains, still up on the catwalk.  "They're sulking."

"Where'd she go?"

Viv shoots Owen a dirty, if polite, glare.  "She didn't say.  A new project, I guess.  Top secret."

"Ah," says Owen, and jogs up to join her.  "Well, I wouldn't know anything about that.  There something I can do to help here?"

Viv looks Owen up and down critically.  "Wanna play fetch?"

\---

An hour later, Owen pulls up outside Paddock Eleven, flushed and sore.  Fetch with raptors is incredibly fun, but also a lot of work.  Getting the ball back is a nightmare. 

The paddock is still in a state of chaos, albeit the orderly kind.  Construction is mostly done--there can never be too many steel supports, Owen thinks--and ACU patrols with their usual briskness.  Claire's car is parked right up against the stairs. 

"Boss," the guard at the bottom of the stairs says, snapping to attention.  (The first few months of the project, Owen caught a lot of people lounging around the paddock.  They didn’t think a pair of toddlers would be a problem.  Then, the Big One, about the size of a large dog, had gone and mauled a tech pretty badly, and Owen had been forced to make some personnel adjustments.)

He nods back and takes the stairs two at a time.  Inside, everyone is diligently working--Owen would bet anybody five bucks that the ACU guy called ahead and warned them--Claire is sitting cross-legged in front of the Plexiglas windows, and both indomini are pressed up against the glass, watching her. 

Their breath steams. 

Owen hangs back, not wanting to disturb the training and wanting to watch Claire work.  She doesn’t seem to be doing anything.  She's just sitting there, watching the dinos watch her.  But they're mesmerized, both of them.  They watch her as intently as her raptors do. 

"You can come over, if you want," says Claire, sounding almost amused.  "We're nearly done for the day."

Cautiously, Owen makes his way over to the glass.  The Big One's red eyes turn to look at him, but Ghost doesn't bother.  Very, very quietly, the Big One begins to growl. 

"Reward Ghost, please.  We're done for today," says Claire.  Somebody up top tosses what looks like half a chicken into Ghost's part of the paddock; the animal coils herself, eyes on the meat, and leaps.  She hooks her hands into the bars that divide the paddock, hauling herself up until she's almost out, and snaps the chicken out of the air. 

She drops back town to the ground with a thumb that makes Owen's teeth rattle. 

"Holy _shit,"_ he breathes.  His heart is thundering in his chest.  He doesn't know whether he's in awe or pants-pissing terrified.  Ghost's movement was so like one of Claire's raptors that his first instinct is to put both of these animals down himself. 

"I've already commissioned a domed roof like we have in the Aviary," Claire says, catching the look on Owen's face.  "So far, neither of them have expressed any interest in getting out."

"Well, that's good," Owen says quietly.  His pulse is pounding in his ears. 

"Coffee?"

It takes Owen a minute to understand what she's saying.  "Oh," he says.  "Uh, sure?"

"So we can talk about the indomini," Claire says, rolling her eyes. "Your place or mine?"

"Mine's closer," Owen decides.  Both of the indomini are following his movements now, snuffling at the glass.  The Big One growls again. 

"Sounds good," Claire says.  "Now let's go before they get agitated."

"They get agitated often?"  Owen holds the door open for Claire and she breezes past him, taking the stairs two at a time. 

"Oh, over everything," she says.  "They're like fussy toddlers." 

" _Large_ fussy toddlers," Owen mutters, and follows her down.  "It gonna be a problem?"

"Coffee first," says Claire, climbing into her car.  "Then we'll talk."

"Do you even know where I live?"  He shouts after her, as she puts the car in drive and speeds away, kicking up dust. 

He sighs.  Maybe an Irish coffee for him, then.

\---

"Their learning curve is unprecedented," Claire says. She looks good on Owen's porch, hair blowing in the wind, eyes bright and interested.  Passion lights her up.  Owen deliberately turns his thoughts away from that and says, the very picture of professionalism, "How do you mean?"

Claire takes a sip of her coffee.  "With any animal--with humans, even--there's a period of time in their lives when they're the most receptive to learning.  The brain is still forming neurons and pathways well into adolescence.  Mammals and birds both learn very, very quickly as young, but this rate of learning slows down the older an individual becomes.  Young animals can pick up new behaviors and skills within a matter of days."

"Makes sense," says Owen.  "But the indomini--indominusus?--are nearly adults."

"That's what I mean by _unprecedented,"_ Claire says.  "While animals can and do learn well into adulthood, the indomini are learning like young animals.  They're picking up behaviors within a few days, sometimes even a few hours.  It's incredible.  I've even gotten Ghost to drop a few behaviors."

"So you can train them?"  Owen's eyebrows shoot up.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Grady.  I'm saying that they _learn._ They form associations.  Whether or not they can be trained is another thing entirely."

"Okay," says Owen, rearranging his expectations.  "What are your goals?"

"What are _your_ goals?"  Claire shoots back, eyeing him over the rim of her mug.  Irritation twitches under his skin. 

"To put these damn things on exhibit and have everyone involved--dinos included--be as safe as possible.  That means no breakouts, reduced aggression, and none of that passive-aggressive 'Oh I'm so sick, please come into my cage so I can eat you' bullshit the Big One's been tryin' to pull lately."

Claire considers Owen for a long time.  "Well," she says, "the first goal, then, is getting them to trust me.  After that, I can try teaching them basic drills--hide and seek, fetch, et cetera--to relieve boredom.  I can work on the aggression, too."

"How?"

"The Big One's the more dominant of the two," Claire explains.  "She bullies Ghost.  I'm guessing that's why they're separated?"

Owen grimaces.  "Yeah.  'bout two months back when they were, eh, _Baryonx-_ sized, the Big One half-killed Ghost before ACU could tranq her.  Been separated ever since."

"Probably for the best," Claire agrees, but she's frowning a little, like she's not even aware that she's doing it.  "If I can get her to recognize that I'm the alpha, like the boys to, the aggression should--should--drop.  She'll know her place."

"Al's still a bitch," Owen points out. 

Claire waves a hand.  "He's irritable.  But not aggressive, not if he's not pissed off."  She takes another drink and makes a face at the bottom of her coffee mug.  "The aggression is, I think, the most important thing to focus on.  They're a hodge-podge of different carnivores.  The exaggerated predatory features--the teeth, the claws--gave them exaggerated predatory traits, too."

"Agreed," says Owen, and it's his turn to make a face.  "When was the last time we ever agreed on anything?"

"Literally never," Claire says, and grins.  Owen's stomach twists.

He has always, always, even in the depths of bone-deep fury, respected Claire's abilities as a behaviorist and a handler.  He thinks she's batshit insane, of course.  Owen's read enough chaos theory to believe that no system can be controlled forever, and Claire's the dictionary definition of a control freak.  But she's brilliant, and her work with the raptors is literally ground-breaking.  She can't relax worth a damn, but she knows what she's doing. 

So Owen sets aside his personal feelings, knocks back the rest of his coffee, and says, "What do you need from me?"

Claire takes a moment to think.  "I need you to run interference," she says.  "Keep InGen out of this.  I need time to bond with these animals, and I can't do that if I'm interrupted every fifteen minutes."

"Done," says Owen.  He _loves_ fucking with the InGen guys.  They're all, in his opinion, irresponsible assholes, all of them, down to their shiny shoes. 

"If you haven't already, get the Paddock Eleven staff on as strict a schedule as you can," Claire adds.  "Cut variability wherever possible."

"Sure." A harder and more annoying task, but Owen's game. 

"If possible, I'd also like to take a trip out to Isla Sorna and observe the carnotaurs and the majungasuar, assuming we can find it.  A look at the pack dynamic of the Sorna raptors wouldn't be a bad idea either."

"We've got tons of footage of the carnos, a bit of the raptors," Owen says.  "I know the majung's alive somewhere.  I'll have somebody do a flyby tomorrow.  When d'you wanna go out?"

"Sunday, probably," says Claire. 

Owen reviews the list in his head.  Nothing she's asked for is impossible.  "Anything else?"

"Could you check in on the pack every once and a while?"  Claire asks, looking sheepish.  "I'm worried about them, a little.  They've never had to share my attention before."

Owen grins widely.  His initial impulse is to tease her, but he fights down the urge and says, "Yeah, no problem."

"No chocolate," Claire warns. 

"No promises," says Owen cheerfully, and ducks the napkin Claire tosses at his head.

\---

The next few weeks are a messy blur.  Some dumbass kid tries to sneak into the Valley and gets his leg busted by a territorial trike, and everyone blows up. 

The kid and the trike are both fine, but the incident means three days of straight paperwork for Owen and when he finally surfaces and goes to check on the raptors, he finds Viv and Barry already there, tossing the boys bits of dead rat and giving Owen, even more disheveled than usual, pitying looks. 

After that fiasco, Owen begins the arduous process of moving Baru the sucho into her new enclosure.  She goes, but not before punching a hole in Sasha Chung's car and making three ACU guys shit their pants. 

In early April, Owen manages to pin Claire down for five minutes and get a rough idea of what's happening with the Terror Twins--good things, mostly, he guesses, though the Big One's being difficult--and then at the end of the month he catches Simon Masrani, whom he adores, making out with Henry Wu, whom he does _not_ adore, in a utility closet. 

Owen doesn't really know what to do about that, so he buys them both a very expensive bottle of champagne and spends four days doing everything from the relative safety of the raptor paddock.

He's sitting half-sprawled in the dirt, back up against the fence with Mal nibbling at his shirt collar, when he gets a call from Barry.

"Hey, what's up?"  Says Owen, distracted by both his work and the proximity of Mal's teeth to his neck. 

"Don't freak out," says Barry, sounding pretty freaked out himself, "but Claire Dearing just walked into the _Indominus_ cage."

**Author's Note:**

> In case you're wondering, the New Raptor Squad:
> 
> Al, the beta, Peninsular rock agama.  
> SR, Claire's favorite, African gray parrot.  
> Hardy, Viv's favorite, Bush viper (A. desaixi specifically).  
> Mal, Owen's favorite, Caribbean dwarf octopus. 
> 
> If you wanna talk or have any questions, drop a comment or come say hi @clairesdearing.tumblr.com. I will work on bsb this week I promise!!


End file.
